


Of Talents and Training

by Wreybies



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Friends helping Freinds, Johnny's Kissing Academy, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Episode S04E09 (The Kids Are Alright)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 08:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15770313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreybies/pseuds/Wreybies
Summary: Johnny's Kissing Academy matriculates its first student.





	Of Talents and Training

“But, I mean…” Pip rested his head in his hands.It was clear he didn’t know what he meant.

Johnny peered through the digital magnifier attached to his working lenses. With it he was able to see the micron-fine connections and operations of the inner workings of Dutch’s communication terminal.She wasn’t exactly gentle with it and funds were a little tight since their lives had gotten caught up in saving the J from the Hullen. Serving warrants wasn’t nearly as heroic, but at least it paid. Plus, Johnny liked a challenge, and the way Dutch treated her equipment, challenges were hardly in short supply.

“Spit it out, Pip. For a guy whose nickname is ‘The Mouth’, you sure do have a hard time expressing yourself.” Johnny glanced over his glasses at Pip without moving his head. Accidentally looking at someone’s skin through a digital magnifier of the power he was using was the kind of mistake you only had to make once.

“It’s Zeph,” Pip said, weakly.

 _Of course it is_ , thought Johnny. He sighed and pulled his fingers carefully out from the controls of the micro-waldos.He tapped the magnifier off and placed the glasses on the work table.Closing his eyes, he gave them a rub to adjust from the work and because he’d had the magnifiers on for a few hours and his eyes were sore.

“She’s just so…” Pip made strange claws out of his hands in frustration.

“She’s too smart for you, Pip.” There was no point dragging this out. Pip enjoyed the attention too much.Pip’s large eyes and wide, clownish mouth struck a well-practiced pose of having been stunned and wounded.

“I don’t mean that you’re dumb, Pip. You’re not dumb. But all this hemming and hawing you do with her, she’s not down for it.” Johnny hoped this wasn’t going to drag on too long.

“Easy for you to say. Girls love you.” Pip gesticulated sarcastically. “‘Oh, Johnny, those eyes of yours.’ ‘Johnny, come save me from the Nine.’ ‘Hey, Johnny, wanna’ hang out with the hottest RAC agent to ever wear a badge?’" He dropped his hands in defeat. "How do you do it, man?”

Johnny smiled. It was usually him envying his brother, D’avin.

   “This, this right here. This is the problem, Pip. You’re not a bad-looking guy. You’re on the right side of things in this war. You’re just too… insecure. You need to stop worrying about how people are engaging you and just be the best _you_ that you can be.”

“Be the best _you_ that you can be? Did you really just say that?” Pip was incredulous.

Johnny laughed softly. “Look, man. I know that sounds cheesy, but I’m serious. That’s exactly what Zeph is doing. Trust me, when she and I first met there was a little friction. I’m used to being the Head Nerd in Charge of Science and... other Nerdy Stuff. Zeph brought a different skillset, we clashed a little, but then we each found our space.” Johnny leaned back in his chair. “We need everyone we can get for this war and everyone needs to be committed and _in it_ , man.”

“And you’re saying I’m not in it,” Pip snarked.

“I’m saying you give off an energy like you’re not _sure_ you’re in it.”Johnny raked his fingers through his short hair. “We’ve all got things we’re dealing with, Pip, but when we’re working together, we’re working together. There’s no room or extra energy to constantly reassure you and make you feel like you belong.Just… _belong_ , and you will.”

“And you think that’s what Zeph’s looking for from me,” Pip said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I know so.” Johnny squirreled his lips up in anticipation of the outcome of that truth-bomb.

“She told you?” Pip asked.

Johnny nodded.

“She told you.” Pip repeated, taking it in. “What else did she tell you?”

 _In for a penny, in for a pound_ , thought Johnny. “She said you kiss weird.”

“I what? I kiss weird?” Pip started pacing the length of the room. “I do _not_ kiss weird.” His hands were in the air, gesturing dramatically. “I’ll have you know I’ve been told on several occasions that I’m a great kisser, an excellent kisser. I know how to kiss. Kiss weird? Ha!”

His steam didn’t last for long, and the expression on his face sagged. “I kiss weird? How the hells do I fix that?”

“I don’t know.” Johnny reached for the digital magnifiers in order to get back to work on the communicator.

“You gotta’ help me, man.” Pip pulled a chair and sat across from him.

“How…” Johnny adjusted the magnifiers. “…am I supposed to do that? Assuming its even my job.”

“Like you just said, help me be the best _me_ I can be.” Pippin stared at him manically. “Come on, man. Do I have to spell it out? Show me how to be a better kisser.”

He hadn’t meant to laugh so deeply. He hadn’t meant for it to well up from his stomach. He hadn’t meant for it to sound so dismissive. He hadn’t meant for any of that, but that’s what registered on Pip’s face as Johnny lost control of his breathing and wheezed the kind of laughter that ends in noiseless panting.

He held up his hands, trying to apologize. He set the magnifiers down yet again and wiped the tears of laughter from his face.

“You’re an ass,” said Pip when Johnny had himself back under some semblance of control.

“I’m sorry, man. You’re right. That wasn’t cool.” The giggles threatened to start again and he cleared his throat to get them under control. He went to a storage locker next to one of the data terminals and pulled out a half-empty bottle of hokk.

“Come on,” he said, without waiting to see if Pip followed.

 

* * *

 

In his bunk room, Johnny said, “Sit,” and handed the bottle to Pip. “Lucy, don’t let anyone through that door unless I authorize it. Understood?”

Lucy’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “ _Understood, Johnny. I will not allow Pip’s kissing lesson to be interrupted._ ” 

Pippin blanched.

Johnny sighed, then began a threat. “Lucy, if you tell anyone about this I will permanently…”

Lucy cut him off. “ _Your secret’s safe with me, Johnny. You’re in for a treat, Pippin. Johnny is an excellent kisser._ ”

“What? How does she even know?” Pip looked up at the ceiling.

“A while ago Lucy was a robot. An android. Well, a gynoid, but no one says that.” Johnny waved away the pointless train of conversation. “We kissed. It was a long time ago.”

“ _It’s in my memory banks forever, Johnny._ ” Lucy’s digital voice managed to intone a sense of pride in the fact.

Pippin put his hands up as if to ward off whatever image was forming in his head. “Are we really gonna’ do this?” he asked Johnny.

“The things I do in the name of getting people to shut up and let me do science.” Johnny found two mismatched glasses and poured the hokk.He handed one to Pippin and clinked his against the other.

Two heavily poured glasses of hokk for each of them went by with little in the way of conversation.The buzz was coming in strong. Johnny took the empty glass from Pippin, whose eyes widened.

“You can go if you want,” said Johnny. “No harm, no foul.”

“No, no. I just…” he trailed off.

Johnny put a hand on each of his shoulders, turning him towards himself. Pippin blinked as if spooked.

“So, just pretend that I’m Zeph,” said Johnny. “Maybe close your eyes. That’ll make it easier.”

“But you’ve got a beard. Zeph doesn’t have a beard.”

“No, she doesn’t and I’m not shaving. Take it or leave it.”

Pippin nodded assent.

“Okay,” said Johnny. “Show me, man. Just do it. Kiss me like you were kissing her.”

Johnny braced for it. Pippin closed his eyes and leaned in and suddenly Johnny was being pushed back onto the bed and Pippin’s lips - his wide, goofy lips - were on Johnny. They were everywhere.

“Drd, strp." Johnny pushed Pippin up off of him. "Dude, stop."

Pippin eyed him nervously, swallowing dramatically. “Bad?” he asked.

Johnny pushed him slowly back to a sitting position. He poured out more hokk and took a huge swig.

“Pip, she’s a girl, a woman! Not a plate of food.”

“Hells, hells! I **_am_** a bad kisser.” Pippin wrapped his head in his hands and leaned over into his own lap.

Johnny blew out a heavy exhalation. “Get up.Come on, get up and look at me,” he said. Pippin complied, his eyes were wet with a trace of tears. “We can work on it, man.” He put the glass of hokk on his desk. “I’m going to kiss you, and I want you to follow my lead, just do what I do. Try not to go overboard.”

“But that’s how it always is in films!” Pip whined.

Johnny pulled a face. “What films?” he asked.

Pip looked at him as if the answer was obvious. “You know…” He nodded with his head. “ _Those_ kinds.”

Johnny realized what he meant. “Pip, those… those are not good examples to follow, okay? So, rule number one: stop watching those films.”

“Fine,” Pip replied, exasperated.

Without warning him, Johnny leaned into him, holding him by the shoulders, and kissed him slowly. It wasn’t the open-mouthed inundation Pip had laid on him, and he didn’t want it to be. He wanted it to be small, and innocent. A first kiss, even though they were clearly past that now.

Pippin tried to make it more, bigger, stronger. Johnny squeezed his shoulders firmly as a signal to dial it back. Pippin took the signal and did.

Johnny passed his lips delicately over Pippin’s, letting him feel how that small sensation, that lightest of touches, was so much more.Pippin’s lips parted, and the faintest sigh escaped him. Johnny took his lower lip between his own, pulled it gently, did the same with his upper, played just the tip of his tongue across Pippin’s lips, over the edge of his teeth, gently parting them to find his tongue.

Pippin went slack under Johnny’s ministrations, taking the kiss as one would take a massage, melting into the table.

Johnny closed the kiss, connecting them more fully, his hand to Pippin’s neck, Pippin leaning into the sensation of Johnny softly rubbing his earlobe with his thumb.

Johnny pulled away to see Pippin in a state of bliss, lost in what had just happened. His eyes suddenly popped open when he realized it was over. “You’re a really good kisser!” he said with hokk-induced flare.

“ _Told you,_ ” said Lucy, sounding smug.

Johnny smiled in embarrassment. 

“Now you try,” he said to Pippin.

The lesson continued for half an hour and another large glass of hokk.Johnny’s head was spinning when he declared Pippin a fully fledged graduate of Johnny’s Kissing Academy and sent him on his way.

Johnny wasn’t aroused, exactly, but he didn’t hate what had happened either.

 

* * *

 

Three days went by.

   Johnny and Zeph were in the lab. Johnny was still working on Dutch’s communicator, Zeph was analyzing a blood sample from Delle Sayeh’s child, who still hadn’t been named.

“Thank you,” said Zeph, out of the blue.

Johnny looked over the top of his glasses at her. “For what?”

“What you did. Helping Pip. Thank you.”

Johnny flushed red, fierce heat coursing up his face, into his hairline. 

“He told…?”

“No,” she cut him off. “I mean, yes, he told me, but I guessed and made him tell me.”

“Zeph…” Johnny had no idea what to say.

“Seriously, I’m not mad or anything,” she said quickly. “He was all drunk the other night, and we were kissing, and it was _soooo_ much better than it usually is.I mean, _really_ better. So I figured something was up, and I got suspicious, and when he went to sleep I came down here and got a DNA scanner and scanned him.” It had all tumbled out in a rush. “I thought maybe Dutch or Delle Sayeh, but no, Delle Sayeh would never, but maybe Dutch, and… and it was your DNA I found, which was super weird, of course, and I was like, what, Johnny, and so I woke him up and made him tell me everything.And he did. So… thank you.”

   Johnny waited to make sure it had all spooled out. When it was clear she was waiting for a response, he said, “You’re… welcome?"

She nodded curtly, tipped back into the viewfinder and continued with her research.

Johnny looked back into his digital magnifiers, back into the bruised interiors of Dutch’s communicator.

_Yep, the things I do for science._


End file.
